Bred In The Bone | Page 3

a rider, coming along at a swinging trot that raised the dust and shot it in spurts before him.
"Yonder he come now!" cried the urchin, with a grimace to attract the attention of the crowd. They looked in the direction indicated, and then in' chorus began to shout. Old Robin turned and glanced indifferently down the road. The next instant he wheeled and his black hand made a clutch at the boy, who dodged behind half a dozen others as a shout of derisive laughter went up from the throng. What Robin saw was only a country lad jogging along on a big raw-boned, blazed-faced horse, whose hipbones could be seen even at that distance.
"You know dat ain't my horse!" said the old man, sharply. "You young boys is gittin' too free with you' moufs! Dat horse----"
The rest of his speech, however, was lost; for at that moment the horseman turned from the highway into the road to the race-course and came swinging on toward the gate. The gang behind old Robin broke into renewed jeers, but at the same time kept well out of his reach; for the old man's face bore a look that no one dared trifle with, and he had a heavy hand on occasion, as many of them had come to know. His eyes now were fastened on the horse that was rapidly approaching through a cloud of dust on the yellow road, and a look of wonder was growing on his brown face.
The rider pulled rein and drew up just outside the open gate, looking down on the group there in some bewilderment Then his eyes lighted up, as the old trainer stepped out and, taking off his hat, put forth his hand.
"Uncle Robin!"
"My young master." He took the bridle just as he might have done years before had his old master ridden up to the gate.
The act impressed the gang behind him as few things could have done, and though they nudged one another, they fell back and huddled together rather farther away, and only whispered their ridicule among themselves.
The boy sprang from the saddle, and the old man took possession of the horse.
They were a strange-looking pair, horse and rider, fresh from the country, both of them dusty and travel-stained, and, as the stable-boys whispered among themselves, both "starving for the curry-comb."
The lad passed in at the gate, whipping the dust from his clothes with the switch he carried.
"Good-evening, boys."
Robin glared back fiercely to see that no insolent response was made, but there was no danger. The voice and manner were such that many a hand jerked up to a cap. Besides, the young lad, though his clothes were old and travel-stained, and his hair was long and was powdered with dust, showed a clean-cut face, a straight back, broad shoulders, and muscular legs, as he strode by with a swing which many a stable-boy remarked.
Robin led the horse away around the end of the nearest stable. No one would have known his feelings, for he kept a severe countenance, and broke out on the nearest stable-boy with fierce invective for not getting out of his way.
The horse carried his head high, and, with pointed ears, wide eyes, and dilated nostrils, inspected everything on either side.
It was only when the new-comer and Robin were out of hearing that the jeers broke out aloud, and even then several of the on-lookers, noting the breeding along with the powerful muscles and flat bone, asserted that it was "a good horse, all the same." They had eyes for a good horse.

II
As the old trainer led the horse away around the long stables, the low rumble of far-off thunder grumbled along the western horizon--Robin glanced in that direction. It might mean a change in the chances of every horse that was to run next day. The old man looked downcast; the boy's countenance cleared up. He scanned the sky long and earnestly where a dull cloud was stretching across the west; then he followed the horse among the long lines of low buildings with a quickened step.
It was not till they had reached a box-stall in an old building far off in one corner of the grounds that the old negro stopped. When he had been expecting another horse--the horse of which he had boasted to his entire acquaintance--he had engaged in advance a box in one of the big, new stables, where the descendant of the kings would be in royal and fitting company. He could not bring himself now to face, with this raw-boned, sunburnt colt, the derisive scrutiny of the men who had heard him bragging for a week of what his young master would show them when he came. Yet it was more on his young master's account than on his own